Readers' comments

I am very disappointed with this article. It seems as if you have never been to Mexico to understand the poverty, the monopolies, nor actually understood how Pena's campaign was built up and managed for the last 2 years. Mexico's economy is characterized by one monopoly/duopoly or quasi-monopoly after another throughout almost every industry but the only one that everybody talks about breaking up is Pemex. What about Gruma, Telmex, Televisa, Tel Cel, Bimbo, Coca-Cola, Sabritas, Cemex, Wal-Mart......???? Each and every one of these has a monopoly or uses market techniques to keep competition down.
Pena Nieto has no gift of communication, he had a very smart alliance with Televisa who has been marketing the new president for 2 yrs. Have you actually heard him talk or express an opinion of his own, has he grabbed your attention with a passionate speech? I would be interested in seeing an example.
I am no friend of AMLO but the changes and positive news that seem to be at the horizon for Mexico have nothing to do with Pena Nieto or his party. It's Mexico's people that are sick of the violence, the corruption and poverty. It's Mexico's people who are bringing about change by having a voice through social media pages, using documentary films, using the internet to inform, network, universities, etc and build a new Mexico.

My compliments on the article. It was perhaps a bit optimistic about the PRI's credibility, but, time will tell. One thing understated is the relatively new influx of American Corporations choosing Mexico to locate their plants hiring thousands. It is good for the Mexican economy and will draw other Country's plants if done well.

It is sad to see the continuation of flight of America's great corporations from America. The large Multi-National Corporations that sprung from America are choosing Mexico in our hemisphere rather than the U.S.A. If America doesn't soon address the base causes that has lowered our real manufacturing rates to all time historic lows, we will be a struggling third-world nation.

We need to take a real look at Government's view of Business with their Agency interference. We need to look at the voracious cycle of legal opportunism run amok in our courts against business.
These are the two factors privately pointed to by business not wages.

As a long term and avid Economist reader the darkness-dawn article introduces but then dismisses some intriguing aspects apparently known and depicted by the ancient inhabitants of Yucatan or "the Maya" so very briefly referred to in this article such as "archaeologists dug up Mayan calendars that ominously seemed to run out in the final days of 2012" plus the statement that "it turns out that the Mayan glyphs were misunderstood". This is perhaps jumping to an improper conjecture, as did Frere de Landis when he burned the Mayan codices as a deed of cultural and religious dominance 500 years ago.
No explanation as to why have multitudes in the billions worldwide have typed in internet searches seeking more information about "the end of the world in 2012" which may have been a "misinterpretation".
As it turns out the "Mayan long count calender" is good for several millenia or precisely 5126 years. Repeat that number 5 times, usually referred to as the "precession of the equinoxes" which corresponds to the time interval for a complete cycle of the meanderings of our earth's north star, Polaris. Not by any mere coincidence, the Maya ancients had accurately accounted for the actual astronomical data in the Mayan calendar. Also include the 41 billion, billion, billion year stella, also preserved in "Mayaland" which corresponds closely to one evolutionary cycle of the universe. This as revealed by Maya elders that shared their knowledge to us and revealed in our Yucatan travels to Mexico. History indeed repeats itself again and again - ad infinitum.
In our travels to Yucatan peninsula as also revealed in the Econmist's "data glyph" which portrays the Yucatan murder rate at a low 2.2 per 100,000 . Thus we concur with the Economists glyph which reveals the Maya as very friendly and peaceful folk and wonderful hosts!

I have the outmost respect for those who are well informed, smart, and well intentioned... However, some of you that commented on this article let your passion hinder your reason and common sense...
You argue against meticulous facts and say that the author should "do his homework" and you seem to insinuate a sort biased writing by the author...but did you read the entire report??? the 9 articles? I dont think they are biased at all...
I believe that the Economist is intended for readers that want to gain a holistic view on the world, and hopefully interpret the information to react locally with the best of intentions to promote a positive change.
The passionate comments questioning the validity of this report/author hurt Mexico much more than you think...

try going to rural areas of mexico and you will find the articles that many important voices of mexicos in the world promote are a bunch of misleading information. take for instance the voice of mr castaneda, who in my opinion is just trying to copy the voice of mr octavio paz, stating that mexico has change blah blah blah. I have been to many places in rural mexico who still dont have electricity and Im looking for peopleo in the deveoloped world to work and find solutions to this problem and most of all make it an opportunity.

Whoever wrote this piece didn't do all the homework and has serious mistakes, let's see:
"Grinding poverty? Yes, but alleviated by services such as universal free health care" FALSE. The health care system in Mexico is not free (there are large especial fees to be paid by both the employer and the employee) and it is definitely not universal: you cannot have it if you are not employed. There is a new "seguro popular" that intends to be universal, but it covers a very, very little part of the population.
"Enrique Peña Nieto, who won a clear election victory on July 1st." Very false, come on! Didn't you see all the evidence, videos, interviews, photos and stories about the massive vote-buying by the PRI? Everyone knows it here and we all know people who sold their vote.
"A handsome 46-year-old with a gift for communication" VERY WRONG, this guy does not have any gift for communication; in fact, he has repeatedly shown in interviews and public appeareances that he is a very ignorant person.
The writer also forgets that, regardless of how the macro numbers (or however you call them in English) in Mexico's economy look apparently good; our sad truth is a profound inequality in which 52 million poor people share the supposed wealth with a handful of ultra-rich families that control almost everything in the economy.
And finally, I don't have official numbers for the birth rate in Mexico, but I seriously doubt it will soon be lower than in the USA; in fact, it is also general knowledge that under the PAN government, the country's birth rate went up (with them being conservative, much budget for family planning was cut).

I comletely agree with you!! - and let's not forget the description of "I am the 32nd" movement...its not because it was only lead by 131 students...is because Peña Nieto claims there were only 131 even though it was the majority of the University.

-EPN's victory. The IFE has the final, official say on the election's voting countdown, and the IFE showed EPN indeed won a clear victory. The votes were counted through processes supported for all parties. Can you please show your analysis that objectively disputes EPN's victory?

-EPN's communication skills. He might or might not be a good communicator - this is a subjective attribute. However, communication skills have nothing to do with ignorance or knowledge.

-Mexico's macroeconomics. All official studies on Mexico's GDP show values similar to those presented to the Economist. GDP is not a reflection of a country's equality; rather, it simply measures a country's production.

-Mexico's birth-rate. So you don't have official numbers, but you still decide to dispute The Economist numbers? I am assuming The Economist DOES have official numbers at hand. If you want your argument taken seriously, please give to us, the rest of the readers, reasons to take it seriously.

About birth rate, the CIA gives 18.87 births/1,000 population for Mexico, compare with 13.7 births/1,000 population for USA. Mexico still lead by this critera. I can't find data about a few years ago, so I don't know what the trend look like, maybe Mexico numbers are falling faster than USA and that's why The Economist concluded Mexican birth rate will fall under the American one.

"There is a new "seguro popular" that intends to be universal, but it covers a very, very little part of the population."
You are so wrong on this account my friend. The Seguro Popular is huge, in fact it is easily the largest health care provider in the country. As of last year there were already 48 MILLION PEOPLE in it (Source: Ministry of Health 2011 http://www.vanguardia.com.mx/inscritosenelseguropopular48millonesssa-107...). I see, from the rest of your comment, that you are largely unconcerned about the truth and the accuracy of data. Yet, for the benefit of others, I wanted to set you straight on this one.

Obviously that guy does not care about facts. He has decided to prove The Economist wrong by opposing his own opinion to actual facts and truths. He did not even read the Special Report carefully, or else he wouldn't be criticizing The Economist for omitting facts that, in fact, are well discussed in the report (for instance, the data on poverty or the disparities in wealth distribution, oligopolies, etc).

"it is also general knowledge that under the PAN government, the country's birth rate went up"

Actually for the last 10 years family planning is very strong. Any medical student on his social service year knows that. The local health services demand a monthly quota of people on any family planning method. Condoms are given for free, no questions asked. Also pills, DIUs, etc.
I did my social service during the Fox presidency and there were no restrictions on family planning methods. My sister did hers in Calderon's and was the same history. Both of us did our social service in San Luis Potosi, a "catholic" state and family planning was one of the priority projects. Actually those receiving $$$ from "oportunidades" or "progresa" have to be on family planning.
Actually the one against planning and abortion is AMLO, who also oppose gay marriage.

The difference between Mexico's and the USA birthrate are the inmigrants, who tend to be young and therefore have children while in 'Merica, as a Mexican I see that happening most of my friends are not having any plans to have children, they care more abou their professions. lol the trend is there anyways if u want to see it and get trough your prejudices is your choice lol

First: the IFE is an organism that is not neutral at all, there are allways corrupted politicians of some party (PRI, PAN) at the head of the institution.

Second: did you know that when the proof of vote-buying (monex and Soriana's cards) IFE decided that vote-buying wasn´t ilegal?

Third, did you knew that the irregularities in vote counting and errors where allways in favour of Peña Nieto? the information is still outherem citizens took thousands of photos of the information sheets, and when they checked the information at IFE's webpage, most of the times Peña nieto had 5 to 20 more votes, AMLO had 5 to 20 less votes.

Fourth, the media campaign for Peña Nieto was overwelmingly superior than the ones from his competitors, it was a 5 year non stop media campaign, spending 300,000,000 pesos yearly on publicity and paid articles. during the presidential campaign he overspent by ten times the budget planed for each candidate.

This would give a better picture of the income per capita as values in USD are heavily distorted given how undervalued the peso has been for a few years.

Having said that, the differences in income are shocking from state to state, how a northern state like Coahuila can have almost 4 times the income of a southern state like Chiapas? This should be another serious issue the new government has to address before this becomes a political problem.

Little by little Mexico is becoming a leader country. As mexicans we deserve it. We passed through a series of recurrent economic crisis, and very recently a spiral in violence. After all of that I think that mexico turned out to be a more modern country, which undoubtedly will facilitate the political and economic reforms that out country needs to mtake the final transition to modernity.

I think it's a good article wrote by an outsider, the truth is quite different. Mr. Peña is not a great communicator, in fact he's the opposite, and a lot of us think he's just a puppet of the old PRI dinasties, the drug on war is pretty stupid because it has led only to an increase in violence and killing, the gap between the rich and the poor is growing wider, and NAFTA has only led to closure of independent-owned businesses and turning this former-self-employed people into employees of the rich, not to talk about agriculture -specially corn-. If that's the future, it doesn't seem so bright to me.

“Mexico has form in turning triumph to disaster”. So true indeed. Despite some hedging like the one presented in the quoted sentence, the tone from the opening article to the Special Report, and the whole of it, is optimistic. But there is rather abundant ground for holding a different view: a) a dismal education system, b) deplorable institutions plagued by corruption, c) a dysfunctional political system where gridlock has been the norm for 15 years now (and counting), d) an incredibly restrictive foreign investment law, that is quite successful sending foreign investors elsewhere (no doubt, the automotive sector is great attracting investment from abroad, pity about energy, communications and transportation, among others), e) a rigid labour market (yes, even with the recent reform, a positive but nonetheless small step), f) public finances heavily dependent on oil revenue whilst tax revenue is dismal and g) a massive petrol (gasoline) subsidy in the range of 1-2 percent of GDP. Just to consider: GDP per capita has grown on average 0.62 percent yearly during the last 30 years. The Economist glimpses light at the end of the tunnel. Indeed, hopefully, it is the flicker of a long-delayed dawn, but it may be a train coming.

This article is a valued information about our country. However, there is an inaccuracy on the investigation and I really hope this could not be be build about international perceptions. I´m from a downtown in Mexico and is very sad see how the inequality can be part of our currently society. Rural communities with no water access and internet and of course with not that GDP that you mention. We will face another food crises, the worst of our story: Corn supply in base of the Monsanto irresponsible criteria. As a Mexican woman I can say that my expectation with this new government are low. I really hope our Mexican collectivity can have this reset that Mayans or only the marketing are saying. Saludos from Puebla.

The main cause of the next food crisis is climate change. Extreme dry seasons with flood will ruin most crops in the world.
The main source of corn is the USA, at least for Mexico (specially corn for pigs). An unusual dry season in the USA will starve Mexico too.
So we have millions of humans who destroy the environment, therefore the climate change. Is the recipe for disaster.